Letters

It's not ghost bikes that put people off cycling

The death of another cyclist on 11 November brings to 15 the number of cyclists killed in London so far this year, eight involving HGVs or tipper trucks, and two deaths in the past three weeks at the Bow roundabout in east London, now a cycle superhighway. Last week you reported on "ghost bikes", the white bikes which mark the sites of cyclists' deaths (Memento mori or wrong signal?, 11 November), suggesting that these memorials to road victims were being blamed for putting people off cycling.

As a friend of James Foster, killed in 2003 on his bike, whose friends started the London Ghost Bike campaign in his memory, I am saddened that Gill Ord, a director of Mosquito Bikes, where James worked prior to his death, thinks ghost bikes may put cyclists off. The 300 cyclists who took part in the 12 November Tour du Danger ride visiting 10 nightmare junctions, the hundreds of cyclists who take part in Critical Mass and feel the safety of a large group, the cyclists who organise memorial rides – they know that people are put off not by ghost bikes but by traffic volume, inadequate road-safety measures for cyclists, and insufficient training and technology for lorries in cities.

As more cyclists take to the road on Boris bikes, the mayor has an urgent responsibility to address the 52 points identified by the Cycle Safety Action Plan in 2010, to reduce cyclist deaths and injuries in London.Hannah CallerLondon